Just picked this up last weekend along with a new trailer from Raceking up on the sunshine coast, QLD. I bought the shell quiet a while ago but was waiting for my new trailer to get built so we could drive up and grab both in one go.

The shell was purchased from Rising Sun Subaru up on the sunshine coast and as far as I know it is straight off the production line at Subaru in Japan, never been built into a full car and was used to set up the robots for painting on the production line. That's all I know really, its a full shell including all panels but that's all, no motor, suspension etc.

I had been trying to buy one at pickles auctions for about 6 months but bidding was always going way too high (over $6k) for a bent one. I remembered RSS posting a BRZ shell on their facebook page a long time ago so I contacted Kris to see if he could get another one, turns out he still had that one and a deal was made.

I have been wanting to get back into supersprints for a while but I didn't really want to change my wrx back to a single purpose machine again as I really enjoy my gravel racing and motorkhanas. I thought about building a GC8 shell as a cheap way of starting a new project but when I started looking into aero design the BRZ just seemed like the perfect platform to start with.

This will be a long term project (nothing like my Outback) as my budget is limited, however, I do plan on doing most of the work myself to offset the low budget. I have invested in a bit of fabrication gear including a multipurpose MIG welder that can also do DC TIG and aluminium MIG via a spool gun. A hydraulic tube bender with 1.75" and 1.5" dies, metal cutoff saw and drill press. I'm currently learning to weld.

As usual the plan is to try and go as fast as possible with as little money spent as possible.

This is a discussion thread as much as a build thread so let the discussion begin. I'm happy to hear as much input as possible from subyclub members on how to make this car go fast with a limited budget.

Turbo:
???
Looking into the possibility of factory fitted front mount MY10+ GT Liberty turbo complete setup? any info appreciated on if this is possible to adapt to a ej20? otherwise I need to fabricate a complete front mounted turbo setup.

Gearbox:

Stock BRZ 6MT (starter motor is on the wrong side for EJ20, bolt pattern mostly the same, should fit with minor mods) not sure on spline length compatibility, probably not worth the hassle.

Toyota 5MT, either W-series or R154 (off the shelf bellhousing available to suit EJ20 for both)

Body kit:
Hoping to do this myself with a little help from friends who have played with fibreglass and carbon, another big learning curve but can't afford an off the shelf kit and I don't like the look of those bolt on kits anyway. The body kit will need to be custom to accommodate the 295 tyres with lower ride height and aero.

Other stuff:
Full roll cage integrated into suspension pickup points. Trying to lower COG as much as possible and move things toward the center of the car, having an empty shell as a starting point helps you consider everything you add to the car and where you locate it.

this sounds good.... I'm guessing you have good reasons ($$/reliability/power) not to go FA20DIT ?

I'm open to anything really and am happy to be schooled on one choice over another.

The reason for my current choice would be to use a motor pre CAN-Bus so I can strip the loom and reflash the stock ecu without issue or added expense of aftermarket ecu's. I can probably get a reasonably low km pre-CAN jap spec long motor with loom and ecu a fair bit cheaper than a later model motor.

Generally speaking the power will be kept conservative and reliable with a focus on weight loss and balance. Of course there is always the option later to rebuild the motor for more power but for now I'd prefer an unopened motor.

fork yeah. This should be a wicked build. Havent seen an EJ BRZ before although im sure its been done

When they (86/BRZ) first hit the market a couple of drifters dropped ej's in them because there was zero aftermarket support for the FA NA motor. Now the market is flooded with bolt on forced induction kits so people just do that.

Starting with a shell and no motor means its easier for me to just drop in an ej20 unless I wanted to use something from another manufacturer.

I have stripped all the panels off the shell now and put them into storage. I am going to have to source the front crossmember including control arms and rear multi-link suspension cradle before I can start doing anything with the shell.

It's not urgent because I still need lots more practice with my welder.

Once I have the suspension parts I plan on working out the maximum amount I can lower the car and then lifting every point in the chassis in which the suspension attaches to by this amount. This will lower the car whilst keeping the suspension geometry completely standard.

As far as I know the swaybars, endlinks and control arms in the rear are direct swap. But the BRZ platform doesn't need the heavier aftermarket bars WRXs upgrade to, actually the OEM 08+ WRX rear sway bar is a good size to move up to.

I only ask as I can get wrx subframes straight from RSS but the brz ones are harder to find at reasonable prices. Maybe the arms are all the same but the main cradle must be different as they use a different diff for starters.

As for front turbo, I've seen a setup on a WRX that had shirt equal length runners with the turbo mounted pretty much in front if the crank down low. The radiator looked normal from above but halfway down was "bent" forward to make room for the massive turbo. No pics of that setup I'm sorry but I'm sure it's an off the shelf kit that could be replicated with some skill and a good radiator builder...

I love the idea you have with the suspension mounts. Make sure the box and engine can fit under the bonnet and in the trans tunnel!